Empowering the Presidency: A Case for Overturning Humphrey’s Executor
The time has come for the Supreme Court to right a nearly century-old wrong that has undermined the constitutional authority of the President of the United States. The 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S. stands as a relic of progressive overreach, diluting the executive power vested in the president by Article II of the Constitution.
By shielding unelected bureaucrats in so-called “independent” agencies from presidential oversight, this ruling has fueled the growth of an unaccountable administrative state. With President Donald Trump’s bold moves to reassert executive control, the Court now has a golden opportunity to restore the proper balance of power and overturn this flawed precedent.
For most Americans, Humphrey’s Executor is an obscure case, known only to constitutional scholars and government insiders.
Yet its impact reverberates today, as seen in recent legal battles over President Trump’s authority to remove officials like Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), or Gwynne Wilcox and Cathy Harris from the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board, respectively. The Supreme Court’s temporary stays of lower court rulings blocking these firings signal a growing skepticism of Humphrey’s Executor—and rightly so.
This case, which limits the president’s ability to fire commissioners except for cause, is a constitutional aberration that must be corrected to strengthen America’s executive leadership.
The Progressive Roots of a Constitutional Misstep
The origins of Humphrey’s Executor lie in the progressive era’s misguided push to insulate federal agencies from political accountability. Under presidents like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Congress created “independent” agencies like the FTC, Federal Communications Commission, and National Labor Relations Board, designed to be run by so-called experts free from presidential oversight.
These agencies, empowered to issue regulations with the force of law and pursue enforcement actions, were given a dangerous degree of autonomy, with statutes restricting the president’s ability to remove their commissioners except for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
The Humphrey’s Executor case itself arose when President Roosevelt, frustrated by conservative FTC Commissioner William Humphrey’s refusal to resign, fired him in 1935. Humphrey’s estate sued, and the Supreme Court wrongly upheld the firing restriction, claiming the FTC’s “quasilegislative” and “quasijudicial” functions justified its independence from the president.
This reasoning was a direct contradiction to the 1926 Myers v. U.S. decision, which correctly affirmed that the power to remove federal officers is an inherent executive function under Article II.
The Court’s claim that the FTC’s vast regulatory and enforcement powers are not executive in nature is, frankly, absurd. The president, tasked with ensuring that “the Laws be faithfully executed,” must have the authority to oversee agencies wielding such significant power.
A Path Forward for American Governance
The administrative state, bloated and unaccountable, has grown unchecked because of Humphrey’s Executor. Agencies like the FTC exercise immense executive authority—issuing binding regulations and pursuing legal actions—yet operate beyond the president’s control, undermining the will of the American people who elect him.
Recent Supreme Court decisions, such as Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2010) and Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2020), have begun to chip away at this flawed precedent, expanding the president’s removal powers. Now, with cases like Trump v. Slaughter before the Court, the stage is set for a historic correction.
Overturning Humphrey’s Executor would restore the constitutional balance, ensuring that the president—elected by the people—can fully exercise his Article II authority to manage the executive branch. This is not about partisan politics; it’s about preserving the democratic accountability that defines our republic.
An administrative state answerable to no one but itself is a threat to American liberty and governance. By empowering President Trump and future presidents to hold federal agencies accountable, the Supreme Court can dismantle a key pillar of the progressive legacy and reaffirm the strength of America’s constitutional system.
